Old English Online

Lesson 9

Jonathan Slocum

The Seafarer, with other poems including The Wanderer in lesson 8, is found in the
Exeter Book, a latter 10th century volume of Anglo-Saxon poetry. The poem is an elegy,
characterized by an attitude of melancholy toward earthly life while, perhaps in allegory,
looking forward to the life to come.

As with The Wanderer, authorship of The Seafarer is unknown and the time-frame is
uncertain; it may have originated a half century before the Exeter Book was compiled,
but much clumsy modification is apparent. This is not due to problems with the book
itself, as it is undamaged and the penmanship is clear. Whether some corruption is due
to secondary Christian influence is not known, though it seems quite possible.

Reading and Textual Analysis

Whether a dialogue or a monologue, the poem presents two views of life at sea. Gordon,
in his Anglo-Saxon Poetry (op. cit., p. 84), characterizes the debate on one side as
"a dialogue in which an old sailor tells of the lonely sufferings of life at sea, and
is answered by a youth who urges that it is the hardness of the life which makes it
attractive," vs. the other side as "a monologue in which the speaker tells of his
sufferings, but also admits the fascination of the sea." Either way, the transcendant
message exposes "the fleeting nature of earthly pomps and joys."

Various parts of this poem, some included in our selection, display signs of textual
corruption, disturbing the grammar and poetic structure and making some sections quite
difficult to understand. Our selection includes lines 1-43, found on pp. 152-153 in:
Charles T. Onions, ed. (1959), Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Reader in Prose and Verse, 14th
edition, Oxford: Clarendon.

Translation

I can tell a true tale about myself, of voyages speak,
how in days of toil I often endured a time of hardship,
experienced bitter sadness, have known on a ship places of sorrow,
much dire tossing of the waves.
Where an anxious night-watch often kept me on the prow of a ship
when it drives beneath the cliffs.
My feet were pressed cold, bound in frigid fetters by the frost;
where sorrows sighed hot around my heart;
hunger gnawed within, a sea-weary mood.
The man does not know, to whom everything happens most happily on earth,
how wretched I spent an ice-cold winter at sea in the paths of exile bereft of kinsmen...
behung with icicles: the hail flew in showers.
There I heard nothing but the sea roar, ice-cold billow, sometimes the song of a swan:
I made for my own amusement the gannet's song
and the water-bird's call for the laughter of men, mew singing for mead-drinking.
Storms there pounded stony cliffs, where sea-swallow replied to them with frosted wings;
often the eagle screamed dewey-winged.
No protective kinsmen might cheer the poor in spirit.
Because he trusts little who has experienced life's joy in cities,
with perils few, proud and intoxicated, how often I must remain exhausted in the sea lane.
Night's shadow grew dark, from the north it snowed, hoar-frost bound the soil;
hail fell upon earth, the coldest of grains.
Therefore it strikes now the thoughts of the heart,
that I the humble streams, the tumult of sea waves myself should test;
the mind's desire urges at all times the spirit to travel,
so that I seek far hence the land of foreigners.
Because (there) is not a man on earth so proud, nor of his gifts so generous,
nor in youth quite so bold, nor in his deeds quite so valiant,
nor to him his lord quite so gracious,
that he never has anxiety (about) his sea travel,
(or) to what end the Lord will bring him.

Grammar

41. The Anomalous Verb dōn

The text in lesson 2 introduced the 3rd person singular preterite indicative form
dyde of the anomalous verb dōn 'do, make'. The preterite dyde is found also
in this lesson text, along with the related infinitive gedōn 'act, do, bring to
pass', and the plural preterite dydon is found in the following lesson. Forms of
dōn are reflected in the following table:

dōn

Indicative

Subjunctive

Imperative

1 Sg. Pres.

dō

dō

2 Sg. Pres.

dēst

dō

dō

3 Sg. Pres.

dēð

dō

Pl. Pres.

dōð

dōn

dōð

1 Sg. Pret.

dyde

dyde

2 Sg. Pret.

dydest

dyde

3 Sg. Pret.

dyde

dyde

Pl. Pret.

dydon

dyden

The present participle is dōnde, and the past participle is gedōn.
The modern English forms do, did, and the so-called "King James English"
forms dost, doth, are descended from forms of dōn.

42. Reflexive Pronouns

Various forms of the pronoun self appear in our lesson texts, including
sylf and sylfum in this lesson and other forms in lessons 5 and 7.
However, reflexive pronouns equivalent to modern English 'myself', 'yourself',
etc., had not yet developed in Old English. Instead, forms of the personal
pronouns ic, ðū, and hē, hēo, hit might be used without self in
a reflexive sense (for example mē in dyde ic mē in this lesson text); or
in some instances one of these might be followed by a form of the [separate]
pronoun self (for example mē sylfum in this lesson text); or sometimes
a form of self appears alone (for example sylf in this lesson text),
leaving the question of "who?" up to the hearer/reader of the text.

43. Weak Adjective Declension

The declension of an OE adjective can be either weak (a.k.a. definite) or strong
(a.k.a. indefinite), depending on context. This is unlike noun inflection, in which
a noun itself belongs to either a weak or a strong declension category. Weak adjective
declension rules, which employ fewer distinct inflectional endings, tend to be used
in the following situations:

the adjective follows a demonstrative or possessive pronoun; or

it is in the vocative case (used for direct address); or

it is a comparative or superlative form; or

it is used in poetry.

These rules are not applied with absolute consistency, but they do represent strong
tendencies. The gender, case, and number of an adjective depend on those of the noun
it modifies. (Adjectives have no inherent grammatical gender.) Verb participles are
declined like adjectives; and ordinal numerals, in particular, are inflected using
weak adjective declension with but two exceptions.

The following table illustrates weak adjective declension using OE gōd 'good,
excellent', which appears in our lesson text; the endings in this declension can be
seen to parallel those in the n-stem weak noun declension (lesson 8, §36)
where, among other things, plural forms do not vary with gender.

Weak

Sg.Masc.

Sg.Fem.

Sg.Neut.

Plural

Nom/Voc.

gōda

gōde

gōde

gōdan

Gen.

gōdan

gōdan

gōdan

gōdena

Dat.

gōdan

gōdan

gōdan

gōdum

Acc.

gōdan

gōdan

gōde

gōdan

Spelling Notes

Adjectives ending in -h (e.g. hēah 'high', wōh 'wrong', not shown) are
inflected with contraction, including but not limited to loss of -h (e.g. hēan,
genitive plural wōna). The ending -an may be spelled -on; the genitive plural
ending -ena may be spelled -ra; the dative plural ending -um may be spelled
-un or -on.

44. Strong Adjective Declension

When the "rules" for weak adjective declension (1-4 in §43) do not apply,
strong declension is used. The forms again depend on the gender, case, and number
of the noun being modified; however, they also depend on the stem-vowel of the
adjective itself (review §32 in lesson 7 for the meaning of "stem"). There are
only two strong declension categories to which an adjective stem can be assigned:

The adjective gōd 'good, excellent', which appears in our lesson text, belongs
to the first category; we use it to illustrate the 1st strong adjective declension.
The adjective gearo (also spelled gearu) 'prepared, ready', which appears in
the text for lesson 3, is used to illustrate the 2nd strong adjective declension.

Strong 1

Masc.

Fem.

Neut.

Nom.Sg.

gōd

gōd

gōd

Gen.Sg.

gōdes

gōdre

gōdes

Dat.Sg.

gōdum

gōdre

gōdum

Acc.Sg.

gōdne

gōde

gōd

Ins.Sg.

gōde

gōde

Nom.Pl.

gōde

gōda

gōd

Gen.Pl.

gōdra

gōdra

gōdra

Dat.Pl.

gōdum

gōdum

gōdum

Acc.Pl.

gōde

gōda

gōd

Ins.Pl.

gōdum

gōdum

gōdum

Spelling Notes

The ending -re may be spelled -ere; the ending -um may be spelled -on or
-an. The nominative/accusative plural, either feminine or neuter, may be spelled
gōde. The ending -ra may be spelled -era.

Strong 2

Masc.

Fem.

Neut.

Nom.Sg.

gearo

gearo

gearo

Gen.Sg.

gearwes

gearore

gearwes

Dat.Sg.

gearwum

gearore

gearwum

Acc.Sg.

gearone

gearwe

gearo

Ins.Sg.

gearwe

gearwe

Nom.Pl.

gearwe

gearwa

gearwe

Gen.Pl.

gearora

gearora

gearora

Dat.Pl.

gearwum

gearwum

gearwum

Acc.Pl.

gearora

gearora

gearora

Ins.Pl.

gearwum

gearwum

gearwum

Spelling Notes

The feminine forms gearore may be spelled gearre; similarly, the genitive
plural forms gearora may be spelled gearra.

45. Spelling Variation

As noted previously, several times, OE spelling was never fully standardized -- although
King Alfred did make an attempt to do so. Rather, words were spelled as they sounded,
which presents both benefits and drawbacks to those studying the language. We present a
table below that may help the reader find an unknown word if it doesn't appear, as originally
spelled, in a dictionary. This table does not attempt to help the reader parse &
remove inflectional endings, other affixes, or ablaut effects -- that task is addressed
throughout these lessons. Instead, the table below suggests "equivalent spellings" --
letter sequences that may be substituted for one another because OE scribes made such
substitutions based on fine details of the sounds they heard.

Each row lists, left to right, "equivalent spellings." There is no significance to the
order of elements right of the '=' sign; the rows are alphabetized, top to bottom. The
entries in this table are drawn, with augmentation, from Henry Sweet (1896, op. cit.)
who notes, "unaccented vowels are disregarded."